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Criterion November Releases (US - DVD R1 | BD RA)

The Criterion Collection announces their release lineup for November...

Criterion has announced their releases for the month of November. Each film will be available on both DVD and Blu-ray, with the same special features. The Eclipse Series 30 release will only be available on DVD.

Fanny and Alexander Box Set

Quote: Release Date: 8 Nov 2011 SRP: $59.95

Synopsis: Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, we witness the delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden. Ingmar Bergman intended Fanny and Alexander as his swan song, and it is the legendary director’s warmest and most autobiographical film, a four-time Academy Award–winning triumph that combines his trademark melancholy and emotional intensity with immense joy and sensuality. The Criterion Collection is proud to present both the theatrical release and the original five-hour television version of this great work. Also included in the box set is Bergman’s own feature-length documentary The Making of “Fanny and Alexander,” a unique glimpse into his creative process.

Disc Features -High-definition digital restorations of the television and theatrical versions of Fanny and Alexander -High-definition digital restoration of Ingmar Bergman’s feature-length documentary The Making of “Fanny and Alexander” - Ingmar Bergman Bids Farewell to Film, a sixty-minute conversation between Bergman and film critic Nils Petter Sundgren recorded for Swedish television in 1984 -Audio commentary on the theatrical version by film scholar Peter Cowie - A Bergman Tapestry, a documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew -Costume sketches and footage of the models for the film’s sets -Stills gallery -Theatrical trailer -Optional English-dubbed soundtrack for the theatrical version -A booklet featuring essays by documentarian and film historian Stig Björkman, novelist Rick Moody, and film scholar Paul Arthur

The Rules of the Game

Quote: Release Date: 15 Nov 2011 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Considered one of the greatest films ever made, The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu), by Jean Renoir, is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners, in which a weekend at a marquis’s countryside chateau lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haute bourgeois acquaintances. The film was a victim of tumultuous history—it was subjected to cuts after premiere audiences rejected it in 1939, and the original negative was destroyed during World War II; it wasn’t reconstructed until 1959. That version, which has stunned viewers for decades, is presented here.

Disc Features -Restored high-definition digital transfer -Introduction to the film by Jean Renoir -Audio commentary written by film scholar Alexander Sesonske and read by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich -Version comparison: side-by-side analysis of the film’s two endings, and an illustrated study of Renoir’s shooting script -Selected-scene analysis by Renoir historian Christopher Faulkner -Excerpts from Jean Renoir, le patron: La Règle et l’exception (1966), a French television program directed by Jacques Rivette -Part one of Jean Renoir, a two-part 1993 BBC documentary by David Thompson -Video essay about the film’s production, release, and later reconstruction -Jean Gaborit and Jacques Durand discuss their reconstruction and rerelease of the film -Interviews with Renoir’s son and assistant cameraman Alain Renoir, set designer Max Douy, and actress Mila Parély -Written tributes to the film and Renoir by J. Hoberman, Kent Jones,Paul Schrader, Wim Wenders and others -Improved English subtitle translation -A booklet featuring writings by Sesonske, Renoir, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bertrand Tavernier, and François Truffaut

The Three Colors Trilogy

Quote: Release Date: 15 Nov 2011 SRP: $79.95

Synopsis: This boldly cinematic trio of stories about love and loss from Krzysztof Kieślowski was a defining event of the art-house boom of the 1990s. The films were named for the colors of the French flag and stand for the tenets of the French Revolution—liberty, equality, and fraternity—but this hardly begins to explain their enigmatic beauty and rich humanity. Set in Paris, Warsaw, and Geneva, and ranging from tragedy to comedy, Blue, White, and Red (Kieślowski’s final film) examine with artistic clarity a group of ambiguously interconnected people experiencing profound personal disruptions. Marked by intoxicating cinematography and stirring performances by such actors as Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, Irène Jacob, and Jean-Louis Trintignant, Kieślowski’s Three Colors is a benchmark of contemporary cinema.

Disc Features -New high-definition digital restorations (with DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray editions) -Three cinema lessons with director Krzysztof Kieślowski -New interviews with composer Zbigniew Preisner; writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz; and actors Julie Delpy, Zbigniew Zamachowski, and Irène Jacob -Selected-scene commentary for Blue with actress Juliette Binoche -Three new video essays, by film writers Annette Insdorf, Tony Rayns, and Dennis Lim -Kieślowski’s student short The Tram (1966) and his fellow student’s short from the same year The Face, which features Kieślowski in a solo performance -Two short documentaries by Kieślowski: Seven Women of Different Ages (1978) and Talking Heads (1980) -Krzysztof Kieślowski: I’m So-So . . . (1995), a feature-length documentary in which the filmmaker discusses his life and work -Two multi-interview programs, Reflections on “Blue” and Kieślowski: The Early Years, with film critic Geoff Andrew, Binoche, filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, cinematographer Sławomir Idziak, Insdorf, Jacob, and editor Jacques Witta -Interviews with producer Marin Karmitz and Witta -Behind-the-scenes programs for White and Red, and Kieślowski Cannes 1994, a short documentary on Red’s world premiere -Original theatrical trailers -New and improved English subtitle translations -A booklet featuring essays by critics Colin MacCabe, Nick James, Stuart Klawans, and Georgina Evans, an excerpt from Kieślowski on Kieślowski, and reprinted interviews with cinematographers Sławomir Idziak, Edward Klosinski, and Piotr Sobocinski

12 Angry Men

Quote: Release Date: 22 Nov 2011 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: 12 Angry Men, by Sidney Lumet, may be the most radical big-screen courtroom drama in cinema history. A behind-closed-doors look at the American legal system as riveting as it is spare, the iconic adaptation of Reginald Rose’s teleplay stars Henry Fonda as the initially dissenting member of a jury of white men ready to pass judgment on a Puerto Rican teenager charged with murdering his father. What results is a saga of epic proportions that plays out in real time over ninety minutes in one sweltering room. Lumet’s electrifying snapshot of 1950s America on the verge of change is one of the great feature-film debuts.

Disc Features -New high-definition digital restoration (with uncom­pressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition) -Frank Schaffner’s 1955 television version, with an introduction by Ron Simon, director of the Paley Center for Media Studies - “Twelve Angry Men”: From Television to the Big Screen, a video essay by film scholar Vance Kapley comparing the Sidney Lumet and Schaffner versions -Archival interviews with Lumet -New interview about the director with writer Walter Bernstein -New interview with Simon about television writer Reginald Rose -New interview with cinematographer John Bailey in which he discusses cinematographer Boris Kaufman - Tragedy in a Temporary Town (1956), a teleplay directed by Lumet and written by Rose -Original theatrical trailer -A booklet featuring an essay by writer and law professor Thane Rosenbaum

Rushmore

Quote: Release Date: 22 Nov 2011 SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: The dazzling sophomore film from Wes Anderson is equal parts coming-of-age story, French New Wave homage, and screwball comedy. Tenth grader Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is Rushmore Academy’s most extracurricular student—and its least scholarly. He faces expulsion, and enters into unlikely friendships with both a lovely first-grade teacher (Olivia Williams) and a melancholy self-made millionaire (Bill Murray, in an award-winning performance). Set to a soundtrack of classic British Invasion tunes, Rushmore defies categorization; it captures the pain and exuberance of adolescence with wit, emotional depth, and cinematic panache.

Eclipse Series 30: Sabu!

Quote: Release Date: 29 Nov 2011 SRP: $44.95

Synopsis: In the thirties and forties, the Indian actor known as Sabu (born Selar Shaik) captured the hearts of moviegoers in Britain and the United States as a completely new kind of big-screen icon. Sabu was a maharaja’s elephant driver when he was discovered by documentary trailblazer Robert Flaherty, who cast him as the lead in Elephant Boy, a Kipling adaptation Flaherty directed with Zoltán Korda that would prove to be enormously popular. Sabu went on to headline a series of fantasies and adventures, transcending the exoticism projected onto him by commanding the screen with effortless grace and humor. This series collects three of the lavish productions Sabu starred in for the British film titans the Korda brothers: Elephant Boy, the colonialist battle adventure The Drum, and the timeless Jungle Book.